Bulen fire, March 2024 Bulen, Wenbera
The fire started on 1 March 2024 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,199 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 114th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 11 in Ethiopia in 2024, of 87.
- Burnt area
- 5,199ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 1 Mar 2024 – 6 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 137
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 14 Mar.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,817 ha in 2016, 1,860 ha in 2017, 3,157 ha in 2019, 3,345 ha in 2020, 561 ha in 2021, 2,466 ha in 2022, 2,964 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,202 ha that had burned before.
- 3,739 ha Bulen fire, April 2016 10,492 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,345 ha Dangura fire, January 2020 125,093 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,861 ha Bulen fire, February 2023 3,464 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,549 ha Bulen fire, January 2022 91,996 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,424 ha Bulen fire, March 2019 3,110 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 825 ha Bulen fire, March 2019 10,199 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 558 ha Wenbera fire, January 2021 2,228 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 104 ha Wenbera fire, March 2023 2,485 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Bulen where it started4,881 ha reached on 1 Mar1.6 %
-
355 ha reached on 3 Mar0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar | 37.3 °C | 7 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 2 Mar | 37.0 °C | 8 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 3 Mar | 37.3 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 4 Mar | 37.0 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Mar | 38.4 °C | 12 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 6 Mar | 37.6 °C | 14 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 7 Mar after | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 8 Mar after | 36.7 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 9 Mar after | 37.5 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 10 Mar after | 37.7 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Mar after | 38.6 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 33 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 6 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 137Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bulen fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2024 and 6 March 2024: 6 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,199 hectares (52.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bulen (4,881 ha, 1.6 %); Wenbera (355 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ethiopia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.